Our source close to Sony confirms that he indeed knows the face of patent belligerence all to well, saying he's been called on as an expert to testify in several cases. He remarks, "A lot of those [lawsuits] have been pretty frivolous."

When asked specifically about Microsoft and Apple and how Sony has escaped lawsuits (or licensing demands) he said, "We've had a number of discussions... We've been pretty successful at fending off these onslaughts... [laughs] I guess we should give credit to our lawyers."

So there you have it; the electronics industry has devolved into how good a lawyer team is.

Sony for its part must have some pretty good lawyers. After all, its latest and greatest Xperia phones have slide to unlock graphics (which other Android phonemakers have been sued over) and also have a "Cover Flow"-like transition animation (Apple owns a patent on Cover Flow's animations).

With its new "superphones" hitting the product stream, the phonemaker's remarkable ability to ward off Apple lawsuits may boost its profitability and sales, assuming that situation does not somehow shift.

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"The iPhone's growing market share" "the iPhone reached 53% market share, while ALL Android phones combined dropped to only 41%?"

LOL... Way to fudge numbers. Those #'s were USA only, and the iPhone gets a big bump every year when they release. The nest 3 quarters less and less. Lets not look at any quarter, look at the whole picture. in 2011 Android outsold iPhone 2.5 to one with a lesser OS (Android 2.x) now ANdroid has not only caught up, but far surpassed IOS. In 1H 2012 it outsold iPhone 4 to 1 and in Q3, 5 to 1. 2013 is expected 6 or 7 to 1. Android sales are almost at a million a day. Now factor in the whole slew of 5 inch 1080p powerhouse phones, a few just released and a ton more coming in the next few months.

Whatever though, there is room for both and more players. Its a growing market and very profitable. MY poisnt above is that Apple needs to focus on innovation, not litigation. The companies it is suing have surpassed it. If they get beack to innovating, the market will shower them with more money. The courts will not.

I believe this may be the link you were looking for the other day in another story. It is weird though as it comes from pro-Apple BGR. If Apple said they were closing their doors tomorrow, those guys at BGR could somehow make it out to be Apple's greatest thing ever.

As I mentioned in my comment (but which you obviously did not read) the USA has the iPhone for sale through almost every mobile service in the country, while Android phones of all makes and sizes are available form every single service. This gives us an Apples to apples comparison (pardon the pun ;-). And in this comparison, where availability of the iPhone is almost equal to the availability of Android phones, the iPhone does have "53% market share, while ALL Android phones combined dropped to only 41%?"

It is for this reason that sales of the iPhone is starting to climb in other countries around the world. It's not because people don't want to buy the iPhone... it's because they can't yet (but they will in the future)!

Many services in many countries don't yet sell the iPhone... but Apple is continually improving the availability in these areas, and as they do, sales of iPhones grow.

Look at China. Recently Apple started selling iPhones through the two smaller services in China.. but not yet through the largest, China Mobile, which has over a Billion subscribers.

In the short period that the iPhone has been available for sale in China, those two smaller mobile services have stolen millions of customers away from China Mobile, because they sell the iPhone. China Mobile is in the process of having an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone, which they now want to do to stop the drain of their customers to the other services.

"It is for this reason that sales of the iPhone is starting to climb in other countries around the world."

You arent looking at the whole picture. You are looking at a picture that is designed to make Apple look better and that just isn't the case with regards to market share. Sales for all makers are going up, as the whole smartphone sector is growing. Market share is quite the opposite of what you rae saying. As I mentioned, in 2011 it was outsold 2.5 to 1. In the 1st half of 2012 it was outsold 4 to 1. In Q3, 5 to 1. Q4 will see a sales bump as Apple releases once a year, but it will level out. Android is expected to outsell it anywhere from 5 to 1 to 6 to 1 in 2013. Why? Not because of availability, because of the HUGE list of features the iPhone is missing and because of flexibility.